There’s a lot of books I read before I started this blog in June of 2010 and I figured it might be fun to spotlight those! They won’t be an actual review because OMG YOU GUYS THAT WAS SO LONG AGO but I’ll just note a few things about it, if I enjoyed it and what my Goodreads rating was. So thus “Before I Blogged I Read…” was born. Because you know…I’m so original with my names for things. Check out PAST “Before I Blogged I Read” posts.

Love Is A Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

(Amazon | Goodreads )Rating: I gave it 5 stars on GoodreadsDate IRead it: September 21, 2008

1. It’s a memoir written by Rob Sheffield who writes for Rolling Stone magazine and tells the story of his love story and his loss when his wife suddenly passed away after only 5 years of being married.

2. Music plays a huge part in this book — he talks about his discovery of music, how music brought he and his wife together, their shared love of music and how music helped him through it. Their is a mix tape at the beginning of each chapter and, as someone who appreciates the power of a mix tape and music in general, I loved this. If you know the power of a song or a good mix, you’ll really love this.

3. I cried like a baby for him and thought about my own loss in my life with my mom and how music played such a powerful role be it in memories of certain songs, words that spoke to my soul and how, in my life, music has carried me through the good and the bad.

4. It was a beautifully sad, yet hopeful, true story to read and I really connected to how he spoke of love and loss and music. There were so many lines that I remember writing down in my quote notebook.

5. I also got to meet him and we talked about our own losses and I told him how I can never listen to Meatloaf without immediately thinking of my mom and he wrote me an incredibly awesome message in my book because of that that will always be special to me. He’s honestly a fabulous person and that made me feel so much more of a connection to his story getting the chance to have talked to him after I read it.

Favorite Quotes:

“The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.”

“Tonight, I feel like my whole body is made out of memories. I’m a mix-tape, a cassette that’s been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape.”

“Our lives were just beginning, our favorite moment was right now, our favorite songs were unwritten.”

Have any of you read this one? Did you like it/not like it? Can you recommend any other memoirs or great books for music lovers?